Converge
by theCarny
Summary: Everything the man did was veiled, secret, deceptive. Perhaps his death was not so different, and perhaps, the lies didn't end there. But without a real life tethering him to what he knew best, Alex Krycek's next move could be anything.
1. Black

_This is...different than other fanfics I've done, in that I've placed a song snippet at the beginning of each chapter. Why? God knows, though I think mostly it's to help along what I'm trying to convey in each chapter. There are some songs that just made me think, "omgwtf Krycek", so...here they are._

_As the walls are closing in  
And the colors fade to black  
And my eyes are falling fast and deep into me  
And I follow the tracks that lead me down  
And I never follow what's right  
And they wonder sometimes when they see all the  
Sadness and pain the truth begins to light  
'Cause I can't see no reason  
What is blind cannot see  
'Cause I want what is pleasin'  
All I take should be free  
What I rob from the innocent ones  
What I'd steal from the womb  
If I cried me a river of all my confessions  
Would I drown in my shallow regret_

_--Black_, Sarah McLachlan

--

_Tick._

Everything stopped for a hellish instant.

_Tick._

His mind exploded but his body remained erect. The echo of the gunshot ricocheted off the unfeeling walls of the parking garage, the only noise alongside the last few throbs of his heart.

_Tick._

It wasn't supposed to end like this...not like this, not from him. No. Now what? It would all go to hell. _Damn you, damn you; how could this happen..._

_Tick._

He turned, somehow. Green eyes met hazel. Fading hazel eyes. Hurt hazel eyes. As they connected, something flickered behind them.

_Tick._

What did it matter now?

_Tick._

It was all just a time bomb...

He slumped to the ground, the plastic of his prosthetic arm adding to the illusion of a broken doll, tossed to the back of the toy box.

In momentary silence, the other two men watched as the blood began to trickle from the body of Alex Krycek.


	2. Tenth Man Down

__

Okay, philes should recognize that the dialogue in the last half of this chapter is directly from the show...how else would I re-enact it? Therefore that text is copyright Chris Carter or whoever blah blah not me Fox 1013 whoever /disclaimer

_Deliver me from this war  
It's not for me it's because of you  
Devil's intant my eternity  
__Obey to kill to save yourself_

--Tenth Man Down, Nightwish

_--_

_Thirty-Four Minutes Earlier_

"Knowle Roher."

The man, an intimidating statue of a person, looked calculatingly at his younger cohort, who sat in the leather driver's seat, giving him an unreadable, iron stare.

"Alex," he didn't nod or give any other indication of acknowledgement. "You claim to have something I want."

"No," Krycek shook his head, gaze unmoving. "But I could."

Roher stared back, brain whirring behind an impenetrable mask.

"What do you want?"

Krycek smirked the kind of smirk you'd usually find basking along the banks of the Nile.

"You're a man of high importance, Roher," he said softly, chillingly. "You walk a weakened tightrope, every step you take. You have to make the right steps to ensure the rope doesn't..." he paused, narrowing his eyes wickedly. "Snap."

He sighed, though it seemed almost false, and glanced out the window, to the dormant cityscape.

"I'm a wanted man, as profession. I'm the one who can get you what you want."

Roher glared suspiciously. Krycek's smirk widened as he looked back at the man in black.

"Fox Mulder."

"Precisely."

Roher took his turn to narrow his eyes.

"What makes you think you of all people can get to him?"

"Because," Krycek gave him an almost sarcastic look. "I'm still human...as is he. I can still offer him things, appeal to his side of humanity. Capture him in a web of wit, instead of using such unnecessary force."

Roher contemplated this. It was true his efforts had not succeeded, nor the efforts of the other supersoldiers.

"You want something in return," he snarled, looking back out the window.

Krycek's grin grew darker.

"Naturally, I'd like assurance that I'm safe. No use, marching to my death," he seemed to relax in his seat.

Roher gave him an incredulous look.

"Are you asking to become one of us?"

"Unimaginable powers? Immortality?" Krycek licked his lips. "That sounds like good incentive to me."

"We don't have time for that right now," Roher growled.

Krycek shrugged.

"If you don't want my help, then suit yourself..."

He hit the "unlock" button in the bar beside his seat.

"Wait."

He looked at Roher, like a tiger ready to feed.

"There is something else I can give you. Something more temporary, of course, but it should fulfill your desires for the time being. And perhaps I can give you what you want after you've proven capable to me."

He delved into his pocket and produced a plastic bag, which contained a syringe filled with an ominous, yellowish liquid.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I have no clue."

Roher looked on, almost nervously. Would he really do this...?

"Some time ago, Fox Mulder was exhumed from his grave...alive. What was keeping him alive is found in this syringe," he said mutedly, as if the car itself could hear.

Krycek stared, his grin fading in bewilderment, as the light of the streetlamps caught the glass surrounding the liquid...the virus...

"There's not much. Not enough to fully infect someone, like Mulder. Over time, your body's immune system will destroy it. Mulder was given several courses that led to his comatose state, but this will not happen to you. It will merely stimulate your cells, enough to protect you for up to an hour," Roher explained, holding out the syringe for the young man to take.

Krycek eyed it cautiously. Was it really...?

"This is your one chance," Roher hissed. "Take it, or you could be killed yourself for getting too far."

Krycek glared, hesitated, then accepted the gift.

The car sped along the highway, blending into the night like a shadow, creeping up to its destination like a stalking panther.

"I have a meeting I need to attend at the FBI building," Roher said emotionlessly. "You will stay in the car. When I come back, I'll tell you what you need to know. You move an inch from where I leave you, and I will not hesitate to kill you."

Krycek was used to this kind of thing by now.

"The FBI building?" he spat. "I can't go in there."

"You have no choice," Roher said plainly.

Krycek glared, but knew Roher was right. They pulled into the parking garage, Roher's pass clearing them. Another car hummed past them, but he paid it no heed and kept his head low. He parked the car woodenly, and without a word, Roher got out and left, leaving the younger man to dwell in ominous silence.

For a while he sat just like that, thinking, weaving his plan, scripting his false words to the supersoldiers, writing the right lines for Mulder. It was on a happenstance glance in the rear-view mirror that he caught sight of another vehicle, parked very conspicuously a few meters away. There was someone inside. He stiffened, a feral instinct bubbling in his blood. He knew that those with FBI clearance didn't just sit around in their cars in parking garages. He knew he was being watched, but by who? Did they recognize him? Could he recognize _them?_ Could he do anything without blowing his cover?

He remained motionless as he rapidly pondered this. Slowly, as not to alert his stalker, looked hard into the mirror, to see if he could recognize him.

His heart fell. He did.

It was Mulder.

"Oh, no," he breathed aloud to himself. "No, no, no."

Stupid, meddling man. Why here, why now? This ruined it all. Roher was only minutes away, and he knew Mulder would not leave. Krycek swallowed a lump in his throat. Mulder was on his phone now, speaking to someone...looking away...

Krycek looked at the syringe in his hand. He bit his lip.

Now or never.

--

Mulder frowned, Doggett's voice in his ear vibrating forebodingly.

"Look. We can nail these guys here, Mulder. We can put an end to it."

Mulder felt his heart racing, palms sweating. Scully, Doggett, Skinner...it was all boiling down.

"No, you listen," he spat. "You've got to get out of there. You've got no guarantee these guys aren't alien replacements, too."

He heard Doggett sigh.

"Northern Georgia," he said hesitantly. "A place called Democrat Hot Springs."

Mulder absorbed this, then looked up to whom he had been keeping a close eye. To his horror, he was gone.

The window beside him exploded in a flurry of glass, and his phone was torn from his grip.

"Mulder!" he heard Doggett scream, before a resounding crunch. He regained his composure, just barely, and turned to look into the face of a gun.

"Get out of the car," Krycek said, in a tone threateningly quiet.

Mulder bristled, defencelessly obeying. He stood outside the car, glaring bullets in the direction of his captor. Krycek didn't look his typical self; he wasn't calm, he wasn't wearing a vicious smirk. His face was slightly contorted, as if...

"Doesn't seem fair now. Doesn't seem right, coming down to this," he declared, gun unwavering but voice trembling.

"What do you know about fair or right, Krycek? You're a coward," Mulder hissed, standing firm, every inch of his being emanating the deepest contempt. He began to walk around the car, from the passenger's side to where there was nothing between him and Krycek.

"I could've killed you so many times, Mulder. You've got to know that. I'm the one that kept you alive," Krycek's voice did something amazing. It cracked. "Praying you'd win somehow."

"Then there really is no God," Mulder spat.

"You think I'm bad. That I'm a killer," Krycek continued. "We wanted the same thing, brother. That's what you don't understand."

"I wanted to stop them. All you wanted was to save your own ass."

"No. I tried to stop them. Tried to kill Scully's baby to stop them. It's too late. The tragedy's that you-- you wouldn't let it go," Krycek looked hurt, but Mulder's mind told him it was all an act. That's all it had ever been. "That's why I have to do this. 'Cause you know how deep it goes. Right into the FBI."

"You want to kill me, Alex, kill me. Like you killed my father," Mulder could practically feel Krycek bristle. "Just don't insult me trying to make me understand."

Krycek's expression did not fade. Was he really trying to convince him? Trying to convince him that he felt any pain?

...then again, what was the point in trying to convince your enemy of something, when you had the upper hand...?

His finger danced on the trigger of the gun. It didn't want to be there. Hesitation. An assassin never hesitated. Something in Mulder's memory flickered, and in an instant he was transported back in time, six years, to the edge of a building where Augustus Cole, maybe one of the first supersoldiers, lay, and a pained Krycek searched desperately for the gun he'd thought he'd seen...

They watched each other. Mulder looked coldly at his adversary. Krycek looked back, his face unbelievable. _Why wouldn't he just believe..._

There was a gunshot. Mulder stiffened, waiting for the inevitable pain, but it never came. Instead, Krycek screamed, blood spraying from his good arm, fingers spasming and releasing the grip on the gun. Bewildered, Mulder looked to the side and saw Skinner, stone-faced, gun in hand. Stupidly, in a pained daze, Krycek reached down for his gun. Again Skinner fired, and again he cried out, his arm hanging limply, as he collapsed to his knees. Desperately, painfully, Krycek looked at the dormant gun laying in front of him. He lifted his prosthetic arm, pathetically pushed at the gun, which slid towards the assistant director. He looked up at Skinner, face etched with terror.

"It's going to take more bullets than you can ever fire to win this game," he said raggedly.

"But one bullet... and I can give you a thousand lives."

He looked back towards Mulder.

__

I'm sorry.

"Shoot Mulder."

Skinner and Mulder stared at each other, unreadable. Neither wavered, and in a burst of adrenaline, Krycek shot to his feet. It was the only thing he could do.

Vicious light glanced off of Skinner's glasses as he turned back and fired. Krycek saw the bullet coming, death's pellet, and he knew he could do nothing to avoid it as it mockingly danced towards him, almost in slow motion.

__

Thuck.

There was little pain as the bullet pierced his forehead, little pain as he staggered back a bit. There was even less when he looked at Mulder, contently. Seeing that one was still alive. Mulder looked back, as stoic as he'd been the entire showdown. That face--the steadfast visage--was the last thing he saw before he fell.

Mulder was astonished, though it all happened too fast for him to show it. Skinner looked over the body with something like cynical approval. Torn leather, red blood, hazel eyes that had not yet released their light.

"I'm going to go to the airport. I need that location from Agent Doggett," Mulder croaked.

Skinner didn't move.

"Skinner, are you with me?"

"You just go. I'll take care of it," Skinner murmured.

Mulder obliged in silence, jumping into the car and peeling out of the garage. Skinner gave a last, baleful look at the body, before he turned to leave.


	3. Breathe

_No song verse in this chapter...it'll only be certain ones, you see?_

--

Doggett.

Where was Doggett?

Skinner stalked through the hallways, gun as ready as it would ever be. It was dark, eerie, almost haunted; it seemed the entire building was conspiring.

He rounded a corner, and nearly walked straight into the round front of D.D. Kersh. He jumped, and became very aware of his gun.

"Can I help you, Assistant Director?" Kersh asked in his usual, sharply enunciated tone.

Skinner tried to speak, though his mind screamed at him not to. _It's Kersh..._

"Assistant Director! Do you mind?"

Skinner slowly composed himself.

"Listen, sir," he muttered. "There is a man in this building I need to find, _now._ Agents Doggett, Scully and Reyes are in danger. I--" he hesitated. "I just shot Alex Krycek in the parking garage."

Kersh stared at him.

"You what?"

"He tried to kill Mulder, I had no choice," Skinner barked defensively. "But I don't have time to explain it in detail, okay? Sir..."

Kersh glared.

"You go, but mark my word Assistant Director, you better be explaining yourself later," he spat. "I'll remove the body."

Skinner nodded, then took off.

Kersh meandered towards the elevator, an infuriated grimace distorting his face. What a perfect time for it all to collapse.

--

_Swimming...swimming..._

The waters were endless and colourless. They were not black or white, or even anything for that matter, they just were, and now he was in them.

He could feel pain now. Both arms shrieked, despite what he knew possible, and his head throbbed, but the worst pain came from his chest. His lips parted to scream, and though he felt air on them he couldn't make a sound. Instead, a stream of bubbles escaped. They did not float to the surface, though, and as far as he know such a thing didn't even exist. Instead they pushed away from him, expanding and flattening until they were not bubbles at all, but smooth, shiny planes, hanging suspended in the material. They were, in fact, mirrors, and in every one of them he could see his face...only...was it really his?

The images in the mirrors began to shimmer and sway, twisting until their visage was indiscernible. Then they reformed and became all-too familiar.

He saw them all. Every last one.

Kritschgau. Sandoz. Bill Mulder...they were all there. Their faces were unreadable, unreal, and all he could do was watch them floating before him.

He extended his arm the best he could, beckoned...but they never came to him. They just watched, neither angry nor content, before an ethereal current whisked them away in a river of melting colour.

_Don't go..._

It was then that the world behind his eyes exploded.

--

He spluttered, flailed, like a fish on the beach, trying to choke out the water that was never there. The pavement below him was slick, he could feel, but still he couldn't see. It was all so bright...and it all hurt so much...

Reeling, using limbs not his own, he pulled upwards, pushing through the cloud of rainbow, moving through his instinct and that alone, unable to think or breathe or feel anything but wet, icy pain, as if every fluid in his body was leaking from his pores. How he moved, he didn't know, nor did he stop to think about it; he was merely a mannequin with a mad puppeteer.

He burst through a door, its weight nothing compared to the burden of his own body. Whatever was ahead of him, he didn't care; it was darker, friendlier, and the malicious colours in his vision retreated. Legs moving through their own will, he ran and ran until he could no longer, until he felt he needed to stop, and he flung himself into a hard wall. It was cold, rough stone. He dug his fingers--the ones he knew were there--into the grit, the pain biting into his flesh, awakening his nerves. Gasping, he was suddenly aware of the air that filled his lungs. He was aware of the clothes on his body, and the absence of his left arm.

He was aware of being alive.

Still against the wall, he slid gently to his knees, then onto his side, shuddering uncontrollably the entire time. He held himself for an eternity, curled up against the wall in the dank, city night, like an abandoned child that had somehow found a home.

He was alive. He was alive. The phrase ran through his mind, out of control and free. It was the only truth he knew, the only one he may have ever known.

Pressing closer to the wall, his memories slowly began to slip back. Of the vial and the man and the weight in his chest...the gunshot...

His fingers made a path to his forehead, where they slipped against something. He knew it was blood, he'd felt it enough before, but he couldn't find its source, despite the burning pain in his forehead.

The vial...

He shuddered again and retracted his hand, now feeling the cold as less of an embrace and more of a suffocating squeeze. Curling up into a tighter ball, he tried to forget, and soon the dancing coloured shadows in his vision retracted as his eyes flickered shut, and once again he was lost to the depths of his mind.

--

D. D. Kersh entered the parking garage, trying to be as inconspicuous as he possibly could; and he wasn't doing a very good job, looking around with shifty eyes, as if he were being watched carefully by anyone who would have ever cared. Cautiously, he moved to where he'd left his car, eyes flickering away from the security cameras, trying to find the corpse. He went on like this for quite some time before realizing that there was nothing to find, other than three bullets laying scattered along the ground in a nonsensical pattern.

He looked around, then bent down to examine them. They were bloody, but there was nothing nearby for them to have struck. Regardless, he pocketed them, then turned to give once last visual sweep for the body.

Irritably, he finally turned and stalked out of the parking garage.

Whatever happened to Alex Krycek was nothing of importance to him, and he knew he'd best not get involved past that.

--

Security monitors flickered ominously before eyes, every inch of the FBI building before them.

Agent Crane stared at one of the monitors, the only one that caught his interest. It was the one in which he saw a dead man stagger to his feet and run from the building. He did not recognize him, not part of the conspiracy or as anyone of note; just a man who, until just now, had a bullet lodged between his eyes.

Bringing a keyboard to his hands he typed out a string of letters.

It could risk them, he knew, so blatantly destroying a segment of video, but not as badly as it did if anyone other than himself and his cohorts ever laid eyes on it. Thinking about his own safety, Crane then looked to the other monitors. Perhaps a jump in all the videos would merely be attributed to a power surge, though he knew that this so-called event would have to be responsible for the death of the camera aimed at the man in the garage.

So be it.


	4. Restart

Mulder's eyes nailed themselves to the road in silent panic, for Scully, for Reyes, for all of them. The tires on the car could only move so fast. His mind hardly had the time to dwell on the events that had just unfolded, but somewhere, beneath his current consciousness, the thoughts stirred.

Almost seven years had passed since he first shook hands with the eager young man in the silly suit, and so soon discovered his true allegiance.

Or at least what he'd taken as such

Seven years, and only so many encounters. So many times had he stood with a gun in hand, ready to kill the one who'd issued him so much pain, and yet, each and every time he never could do it.

_I could've killed you so many times, Mulder. You've got to know that._

Mulder tried to push the thoughts back. They disgusted him. He felt no guilt over the death of Alex Krycek.

_I'm the one that kept you alive._

Though he had no satisfaction from it either.

_Praying you'd win somehow._

The tires of the car squealed furiously as Mulder yanked it off the main road and down towards the airport, hardly letting his foot off the gas pedal, begging the way to be clear. His brow furrowed and he gripped the steering wheel with lethal force.

He had to think. Use his head. Not his heart. He couldn't panic...

Stop thinking. Focus. Save Scully. Save your son. That's what he told himself, over and over. Save them.

Then through the chaos and discord of it all, Fox Mulder found that he did.

--

It was considerably cold in the alleyway, which made Krycek heavily regret his choice of sleeping places. Of course, he knew he hadn't been in any state to make any better decisions, but it still made him somewhat grumpy. Grumpier than usual, anyways.

At the moment, he was sitting with his back against the same wall he'd slept against, knees against his chest to conserve what little body heat he'd retained through the night. His slightly bewildered attention was fixed on his right arm. He knew the holes in the leather could only be made by one thing, something he could remember quite vividly. Yet examining the actual limb, no bullets seemed to remain, despite all logical sense. He wished for a means to feel the limb, but was cursed only with the prosthetic arm that hung dumbly at his side. No. There was only blood, smeared along the length of his arm. He assumed the same went for his face, and had already spent some time trying to clean it in a way much akin to a cat, but without a mirror he wasn't sure just how successful he'd been.

So, what now?

He was dead, by anyone's concern. He couldn't go back to Knowle, having failed him so soon, nor could he resurface before Mulder or even Skinner, especially after the previous events. With even more annoyance, he realized he had no car; the one he'd been using, if it hadn't already been towed off to some undisclosed compound, was still inaccessible within the FBI parking garage. At least he still had his wallet, but at the moment, that's all he had. Not even a gun remained at his side. He supposed that he could make some quick money off of selling government secrets to some conspiracy theorists or spies somewhere, or transfer money from his backup account, but the fact still remained that he had no idea what he'd do afterwards.

For the time being, however, it had been drawn to his attention that he was ravenous, and therefore set out determinately towards the nearest fast food joint. Finally, he found refuge in a gloomy, deserted McDonald's bathroom, and was soon busy scrubbing the remaining blood off his face and arm. He'd avoided questions by using the old "read a newspaper too close to your face while walking" technique, and was now almost fully washed of any sign of having just been shot by an Assistant Director of the FBI. In the forehead.

Even if he had been saved by the alien virus, it was still amazing to think that it had somehow managed to fix that up too. Some kind of bizarre deus ex machina, or just a really thorough virus, he didn't care; all he knew was that he was still alive, and that he had to move forwards from that.

By that night, most of the rest of the funds lurking within Krycek's account had been put towards a new gun, ammunition and a used car; black, of course.

After it all, he'd found himself lurking across the street from Dana Scully's apartment building, and he knew all too well who was home. He had seen the three of them enter.

Three.

So they had succeeded.

He smirked cynically at this, though he felt a strange sense of accomplishment as well. There was nothing here for him to do.

Some time passed, Krycek wasn't sure how much. A day or two? He lost track, trying to contemplate his next course of action. At one point, an idea crossed his mind. Perhaps if he still managed to obtain Fox Mulder, he'd be redeemed by the supersoldiers. He knew they wouldn't kill Mulder, not right off the bat; he was too valuable. Mulder himself would be too terrified to react to a man back from the dead, but even so, perhaps he could let him in on it...the whole thing would become a lot easier, anyways, even despite Mulder's adamant hate.

Even before he picked the lock and opened the door of apartment 42, however, he knew something was wrong. It was verified when the door swung open to reveal a very empty room.

Swearing, Krycek slammed the door and dashed back to his car. He knew the sign better than anyone.

Fox Mulder was on the run.


	5. You Can Close Your Eyes

_This song gets to be in here, because according to nicklea(dot)com, the actor himself said it had a "special meaning for Krycek". What is that meaning? You try to see for yourself._

I don't know no love songs,  
and I can't sing the blues any more.  
But I can sing this song,  
and you can sing this song  
when I'm gone.  
It won't be long before another day.  
We're gonna have a good time.  
And no one's gonna take that time away.  
You can stay as long as you like.

-_You Can Close Your Eyes_, James Taylor

--

He could find no lead. The man was just gone. No trace, no uproar, at least from what he could see when he quietly observed Scully drive off to work the next morning. No, Mulder just plain vanished.

Krycek glowered. He could guess at Mulder's location, but that would just be silly; there was an infinite chance that he'd be wrong.

Bitterly, he turned off the highway. There was still one contact he could turn to.

--

Marita Covarrubias stared bleakly at the cup of tea she held on the counter before her. In the dim morning, she had not yet opened the curtains nor turned on a light. Wearing the same bedraggled suit she'd donned for days on end, not caring about the stain on the cuff where she'd spilled another cup of tea only the day before, she lifted the cup to her mouth and took a brief sip. She grimly disregarded the apartment behind her, which had become pale and unfriendly.

Also behind her, she could only sense someone else before a rough hand clapped over her mouth. She stiffened, but she did not scream.

"Don't make a sound."

The hand dropped slightly from her lips. She recognized the voice.

"The word was that you were dead," she whispered.

"When has the word ever been right?" replied the voice sardonically.

Marita sighed bitterly.

"Could I offer you some tea, Alex?"

--

Soon she sat on her chair, staring cautiously at the man sitting on the couch across from her, the faded walls of the living room staring intently at the two.

Krycek stared disdainfully at his tea. It was an unpleasantly lukewarm temperature and was hardly tea at all, but water with a couple of transparently flavoured leaves floating around inside.

"Why did you come here?" Marita asked coldly.

Krycek didn't look at her.

"I need your help."

Marita glared at him, silently.

"To do what this time, Alex? Who's going to die now?"

He looked back up at her, painfully.

"If it all goes right this time, then nobody."

Marita looked down into her tea.

"Why are you asking me?"

Krycek looked up at her now, and her eyes flickered towards him for an instant. Their gaze connected for a brief second before they both looked away once more.

"'Cause there's nobody else to ask."

There was a brief, awkward silence.

"What do you want, then?" she asked.

"I need to find Fox Mulder," Krycek started.

"Absolutely not," Marita practically shouted.

"I don't want to hurt him," he replied defensively. "But I'm pretty sure he has a horde of pissed-off supersoldiers--" Marita tensed. "--on his ass."

She looked away. He looked at her quizzically.

"So you know about them too, then," he smirked.

Marita stood and marched over to her door, pulling it open.

"Leave."

Krycek didn't move.

"Just like that, huh," he snarled. "And here I was expecting at least an apology."

Marita flared.

"What would possibly make you think I'd apologize? Especially to you. I'm not sorry about anything," she spat.

Krycek still remained motionless. Marita's hand clenched the doorknob with fatal force.

"I am."

She relaxed slightly, though it was hard to tell if it was out of stupefaction, sympathy, or a mixture of both.

"What?" she breathed.

Krycek looked up at her.

"Stop bluffing for them, Marita," he muttered. "They'll hold you responsible in the end. You have to get out."

"I can't," Marita replied. "It goes too deep now."

She gently closed the door.

"I tried to do the same thing you did, Alex, and look at what happened to me."

She sat back down on the chair. More silence ensued.

"You know I only did what I did to help," she whispered. "I didn't mean to betray you."

"It got him killed, Marita," Krycek growled. "If you hadn't interfered..."

"They would have come and they would have killed you," she finished quickly. "You know how they work."

Krycek gave her a look.

"They may have killed you anyways if it weren't for the Well-Manicured Man. I need you to know that if I did anything to you, I saved your life."

Still he looked. He couldn't stop. No words came to his lips, and hers seemed to tremble as she watched him back. Something nibbled at him...

"I don't know where Mulder is," Marita said, suddenly quietly, as she stood once more and took her half-full cup of tea to the kitchen. She dumped it in the sink. "But I do know a means to find him."

Krycek watched her with interest.

She turned, leaning slightly against the counter.

"Alex. This is your last chance," she said gravely. "Do not mess this up. If you don't do what you say you will, then I'll turn you over to them." Her voice did not quaver. "Do I make myself clear?"

Krycek nodded.

Marita sighed, then walked back across the living room, to where she opened the curtains a peek.

"Alright then. There's a military base in New Mexico. You know the one. Watch it, and you'll see the personnel travel. Follow them, and you'll find another, smaller, hidden base. Within this base is a person. A test subject. He's the key," Marita explained hastily. "His name is Jeffery Spender."

Krycek tensed.

"Spender?"

Marita nodded sourly.

"His son; but not just that. He's Fox Mulder's brother."

Krycek stared.

"Are you kidding me? That means--"

Marita nodded again.

"But it's not their choice," she said, noticing Krycek's snarl of contempt. "If you rescue Jeffery, then you might be able to rescue Mulder too."

"So, what. I just walk into a secret military base, kidnap the son of the smoking son-of-a-bitch out from under their noses, waltz off the premises and hope Mulder just drops into my lap?" he rubbed his temple. "I'm in trouble with enough people already."

"The Smoking Man is dead, you know," she said mutedly. "He can't hurt us anymore."

Krycek didn't speak.

"Alright. New Mexico," he muttered, after some time. "What about the supersoldiers that are possibly egging my car as we speak?"

"I can't tell you that," Marita went cold again.

Krycek glared.

Marita sighed.

"When I say that, I mean I _can__'__t._ It's too risky. If someone starts killing them off, they'll be able to track down the source."

"Just a hint?" Krycek tried on his best "innocent" look.

Marita bit her lip.

"They get their strength from the metal vertebrae in their neck. Their entire structure revolves around that," she hissed. "Remember. Metal. Destroy it, you destroy the supersoldier."

Krycek stood, and headed towards the door. He stopped abruptly.

"Thanks."

Marita swallowed, then walked to stand behind him. Without warning, she reached out and wrapped her arms around him. Krycek didn't look, but he felt her press into his back. Whatever had been nibbling at him before was now initiating the full-on use of its incisors.

"Be careful for once, Alex," she whispered.

"If I were you, I'd be more worried about myself," he said sombrely. He knew it was true in every way...

He reached out and opened the door. Marita did not release him. He looked back over his left shoulder and saw the top of her blonde, gelled head.

"Hey."

Withdrawing his hand from the door, he reached down and put his hand on hers, clasped together in front of his stomach. Gently he pried them apart, twisting out of her arms, facing her. She looked up at him, and he only then noticed how gaunt she looked. He touched her chin, softly lifting it up.

"Keep _up_, Marita."

He gave an awkward half-smile, then moved to open the door fully.

"Alex?"

He looked back at her.

"What I said last time we met, in Tunisia," she began, looking even more pathetic. "I didn't mean any of it."

He smirked.

"I know."

She opened her mouth to ask, but he finished before she could.

"Come on, now. You were watching me take a shower."

He gave her a smug grin, and she replied with a crooked smile.

"See you around, Marita."


	6. Breach

The base did not look like a base. Having seen quite a few bases in his time, Krycek was authorized to come to this conclusion. Conveniently, there wasn't the large, easily-cut, wire fence a mile from the actual base, nor were there covered olivedrab vehicles whose only purpose was to linger ominously outside. In fact, had he seen the building on a passing glance he wouldn't have suspected anything military about it. Luckily he had followed Marita's advice to the T and snuck along behind the black car that had driven out of the gates of the air force base, keeping his distance on the thankfully normally busy road, blending into the night. The vehicle led him straight to the building which sat in front of him, looking remarkably like a condemned hotel.

_Okay._

Krycek gave a glance at his surroundings. Pretty flat, in that usual New Mexico way. His car was hiding a good stretch back, sitting blankly on the shoulder. There was another car, also lingering on the shoulder of the highway a lesser distance away, probably there to be doing what couples usually do on cool nights to keep warm, as it was red, dumpy, and of no real importance to Krycek. A couple of raggedy bushes hung around before the hill that overlooked the "hotel", and they are what gave him his cover, though it made him feel a tad goofy.

One thing that bothered him is that he wasn't sure when he'd made up his mind to save Spender. For one, he'd be breaking into a military base. It's not as if he was in their good books already. What did he have to gain by saving the kid? As if he could determine where Mulder was. On the other hand, he might learn a bit more, get another chance at this whole "super powers" thing, and it would be another slap in the face to the government.

He smiled evilly.

Just how hard could it be to break into an old, albeit very large, hotel?

--

Fire.

Or was it fire?

It might have been water.

Or ice.

It didn't matter the state, because all he truly knew was that it hurt beyond all agonies he'd ever felt.

Opening his eyes, glazed and blinded by the white walls around him, in one of his rare awakenings from his claustrophobic slumbers, he opened his mouth to speak to his doctors. He wanted to curse their names, hoping that the consonants would uncoil and lash out, searing them with the same vile acid that plagued his being; but no words came.

Through the shapes blurring in and out of his vision, the off-white shapes he knew were his tormentors, stirred by the window. One was speaking in a tone he could only distinguish as a poorly-stitched mesh of noise. The others watched intently. The first one seemed to be on the phone.

Abruptly he slammed it down to the receiver and one-by-one the doctors filed out of the room. Their forms bobbed past the windows then disappeared, leaving their subject alone and screaming internally.

He tried to keep himself awake before the medication resumed its reign over his body, burning his mind with every thought he could muster. Something caught his eye. Another shape, through the window. A black shape.

It shattered. Or, that's what it looked like through his warped vision. The noise told him it was glass, but in the instant it had happened the shape had already materialized beside him.

He heard a voice.

"Hey."

It was audible. At least, through pushing his eardrums to their limit.

"Hey, you alive?" the figure continued, looking down at him. He couldn't see the face very well.

He opened his mouth slightly.

"Great. Are you, uh, Jeffery Spender?"

Jeffrey Spender. Was that his name? His memory ran like an old reel, flickering pathetically past as he tried to pick out the details. Spender. That was his name, wasn't it?

It was. The realization shook him, the only one he'd had in the time that had gone on as a vicious eternity. He widened his eyes as much as possible, choking, spluttering, trying to speak. Something akin to a croak came out and his throat shrieked in agony. He recoiled.

The figure didn't move.

"My God..." it whispered.

_What?_ he wanted to scream.The figure stayed motionless."Come on, Jeff," it sounded softer than it had initially. The figure reached forwards and rattled some equipment and pulled some devices free of his body. "We have to go. Can you walk?"

He wasn't sure he remembered how.Knowing it would get no answer, the figure bent forwards and slipped something under his back. It didn't feel like an arm, but all the same it pushed him upwards. Again he tried to scream, but held it back. Was he being rescued?

The figure grunted.

"Come on man, you gotta help me, I'm sure not carrying you."

Trying his best, he pushed himself to the floor. He'd forgotten what it felt like and almost collapsed, but the figure caught him by the shoulders.

"Run."

Leaning into his savior, he did, at least in the only jilted way he could manage. He was aware of moving down the hallway, and felt a rush he hadn't for so long. What was it again? Adrenaline?

Miraculously, the distorted pictures before him began to sharpen. Things that were unexplainably moving remained stationary, and the white retreated from its war on his retinas. His head bobbed over as they pulled off to hide against a wall, and for the first time he took a good look at his saviours face.

"Krycek?" he asked. Or would have asked. It came out as more of a warbling hiss.

Krycek looked back at him. Something danced across his face. An expression he hadn't seen him use before.

...disgust?

"Jeff," he murmured, looking around at the blank hallways that didn't look like they belonged in a hotel at all. "Listen closely. Don't stop to think, alright? We need to get you out of here as fast as possible or we both die. Got it?"

Jeffrey, asserting that as his actual identity, nodded weakly and was pulled around the corner by Krycek. He tried to ignore the pain, and could well enough, but as he could see more and more his numbness became fear. Clinging to Krycek like a traumatized child, he allowed his weak body to be dragged around the hospital. Was it a hospital? He didn't even know where he was, yet it had been his home for so long.

Home. What a loosely-used word...

At that moment, they walked around a corner and straight into the square body of a man. A tall, lean, and very, very angry man.

Krycek shoved Jeffrey aside and whipped out his gun, instinct consuming his mind and body in a heartbeat. He realized the man he faced was likely a supersoldier.

Like a boar, the man charged, swiping with his arm. Krycek ducked, spun and shot the man in the back.

Stupid. He knew that wouldn't work.

The man lurched, looked back and smirked. Krycek flung his prosthetic arm in the way, the man's sharp fist smashing it into his chest as he drove him into the wall. Nose to nose with the significantly smaller man, his smirk widened into a sadistic smile. Krycek brought his gun up and placed it against the man's neck. This was received with a cocked eyebrow.

"You are so ignorant--" the supersoldier began. Krycek rotated the gun, checking his aim.

"--to think you and your cause even stand a chance--"

Jeffrey watched in terror, afraid to move, unwilling to leave or help Krycek. What was this?

"--against your forefathers themselves--"

"Even I couldn't be sired by bastards like you," Krycek spat, and pulled the trigger. One, twice, three times a bullet pierced the flesh mask and drilled into the metal vertebrae. With the final shot the segment tore from the back of the soldier's neck and spun, bloodily, across the hallway.

Jeffrey gagged. Krycek watched complacently as the body slumped to the ground, then made no time in stepping over to the vertebrae and picking it up.

"See a garbage chute anywhere?" he asked Jeffrey simply.

Jeffrey gawked.

"No, then? Damn," Krycek tugged Jeffrey from where he'd been leaning against the wall and urged him along down the hallway at a slightly swifter pace.

A door popped up at the end of the next hallway, and they approached it with good haste, stopping only for Krycek to take a moment to dump the vertebrae down a chute.

"Where," Jeffrey gasped.

Krycek looked at him briefly."...moa...mor...men?"

"Good question."

Krycek indicated his gun, didn't stop, and burst through the doors out into the night.

There was no reception. No angry guards running with their guns blazing, no black helicopters or Hummers. There was, however, a man running across the hill towards the car parked on the shoulder, a black car closing in on him.

"Poor guy gets out to take a piss and sees the new punishment for indecent exposure?" he asked wryly, looking at Jeffrey.

He stared blankly.

"Never mind. Car's this way."

They found it right as the little red car on the shoulder peeled away with the black car in-tow. Krycek and Jeffrey followed, hanging back as to not be noticed.

"Why are..." Jeffrey croaked. His vision was beginning to blur again. "We...following..."

"Something about that car," Krycek murmured.

No response.

He glanced over at Jeffrey, who's head lulled uselessly to the side.

"Jeff?"

Yep, he was unconscious.

Krycek swore.

Meanwhile, Fox Mulder was staring disdainfully into the car that looked very eager to run him straight off the road.


	7. Rupture

_Thank you so much for the reviews! Much appreciated. _

--

Two pairs of headlights ripped through the indigo night, startling some roadside geckos and carving a path down the highway towards the lights of the town of Cloudcroft. Mulder only hoped the turnoff would come up fast, because the car that was flanking him grew more ominous with each moment.

The best part about this situation was that he had no idea how he had gotten into it. It's not as if he'd done anything in particular to upset the base. He'd lurked a good distance from the old place, disguised quite well beneath the crumbling planks of a historic building of some kind. In fact, he'd only left his car because he needed to "go". That's exactly when this black car came zooming up the hill and had him in pursuit like a lion on an antelope.

This black car which, by the look of it, was beginning to draw dangerously near to his own.

He urged the gas pedal further, but it had little effect, and before he knew it the other car had rammed into the driver's side. Mulder yelled, swerved, forced the tires to keep on the road. He pushed the gas further, the engine screaming in protest. The other car kept pace and dove in for another bite. This strike nearly sent Mulder reeling off the road.

Giving the driver a brief, caustic glare, he didn't even think of looking back. He should have, because then he would have been aware of the third car hanging behind them before its fender was wedged deep into the bumper of his attacker.

The sound of carbon burning was audible even through Mulder's ringing ears, and he saw that his attacker was being forced ahead by the primal force of the other car. He tried to see the driver, but couldn't; the window was obscured by a strange shape.

Disregarding it and only internally thanking it, Mulder quickly ducked off the highway and onto the turnoff. He didn't go, however, before he was positively identified by Krycek, who swore, swerved, and sent the smashed car stuck to his fender tumbling into a ditch. He didn't stop to check for vitals--the driver was probably a supersoldier anyways--and turned back to climb onto the same road Mulder had gone.

Watching the dented red car sputter off up the road, clouding the air with dirt, Krycek felt a strange sense of accomplishment. This sense also caused him to pull off on the gas pedal a little. He couldn't catch Mulder like this, but at least he knew he was nearby; and if he knew Fox Mulder, he wouldn't leave until he'd gotten what he'd come to retrieve.

He looked over at Jeffrey, who was still unconscious, face--or what had been his face--pressed tightly up against the window. The kid was no use like this. Krycek continued down the road but at a much slower pace, his headlights off, and began to consider inconspicuous hotels.

--

Mulder's heart still raced as his car began to slow, choking into a stop, outside the tiny trailer, glowing with orange light, a beacon in the night. Gibson Praise was already outside, waiting for him. Stumbling out of the car, Mulder wiped his brow and sighed, knowing he wouldn't have to explain himself.

"They almost got you," the boy stated, frowning a bit. "But you were saved by an unknown man."

"Yeah," Mulder stared at Gibson plainly, before stalking up the steps and into the trailer. "Let's just hope he didn't follow me."

Gibson squinted out into the night, and shook his head.

"It's empty."

"Good," Mulder sighed. "I don't know about you, but I could do without any 'unknown men' at this time. I've had enough try to kill me."

Gibson shrugged, and followed the former FBI agent into the trailer.

--

The motel was quiet and run-down, the neon vacancy sign flickering dimly. Jeffrey had come to as Krycek went into the reception and asked for a single, two-bed room, to which he was happily given the key. Groggily, Jeffrey unbuckled himself at Krycek's indication and stepped out of the car. Despite being tired, he figured the medication must have worn off, as he felt more aware than he had for a very long time. So naturally, as he stood inside the slightly smelly hotel room and went to run his hand through his hair, he found he had none.

Freezing, Jeffrey felt a slow trickle of foreboding run down his spine and into his heart. Krycek, where he stood by a wall mirror, had also frozen; he'd caught Jeffrey's image in the mirror, and watched silently as the young man's hand trailed from where there had once been thick, brown curls, to down where he had once had a face.

As if he were in a haze, Jeffrey walked woodenly towards the bathroom. He disappeared into the doorway, clicking on the light as he went. Krycek winced, but remained stationary. Jeffrey cried out, a shriek befitting a wounded animal.

What was in the mirror was only a reflection of all the torment he had faced within the amount of time he was gone. Warped. Blistered. Red. The hole that had once held the bullet fired by his father himself still sat gaping and mocking, unhealed. He stared, in almost more pain then than he'd gone through physically. The thing in the mirror was not Jeffrey Spender...it couldn't be. No man could do this to his own son...

A hand fell weakly onto his shoulder. Krycek was now standing next to the monster's reflection, a slightly mournful look on his own, usually stoic, face.

"It's not quite the same," he murmured. "But..." He indicated his false arm.

Jeffrey stared on, blankly. After a couple of moments of silence, he turned to face Krycek, his hand dropping from his shoulders and Jeffrey's own hands grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. His eyes burned with a new ferocity, something that had never been there before.

"They'll pay for this!" he cried, his voice a hoarse wreck, the best it would ever be from then on. "The men who did this to me, and others--my father and everyone associated with him. I'll make sure they'll fall screaming from their pedestals."

Krycek stared back, calmly.

"Your father is dead, Jeff."

Jeffrey faltered, still gripping Krycek's shirt but unable to speak. His eyes reflected uncertainty, confusion, and maybe even a bit of relief. Abruptly he released Krycek's shirt and turned back to the mirror. He did not look into it, but down at his own blistered hands, resting on the crumbling counter.

"My only regret was not being able to end his damned life myself."

Krycek did not respond to this.

"Krycek...why did you save me?" Jeffrey looked sorrowfully up at his companion. "Last time--I mean, when you saved me from the alien--I suspected you did it because you'd been told, and...and you had some kind of motive."

Krycek looked awkwardly to the side.

"But what's my purpose now?" Jeffrey continued. "What part do I play in the game this time?"

Krycek sighed.

"There are better places to explain this than in a bathroom."

They relocated away from the mirror and its vicious image, turning the light of the bathroom off, and went into the room. Jeffrey sat cautiously on one of the beds, looking as if he were afraid it would bite him. Krycek slumped into a chair that was positioned by the window, where moonlight peeked in. The lights in the room were off, except a bedside lamp. Jeffrey had requested it.

The story was told through the mouth of the turncoat. Jeffrey was enlightened to all that had happened, from the day he was gone. Krycek told him, as he tapped his fingers against the chair's arm, how nine months ago Mulder had been abducted. Four months ago, he was returned, dead. One month ago, he'd risen. All the while had the government been systematically infiltrated and replaced with monsters called supersoldiers; creatures who wore a human face but who acted out of shaded alien interest, and Mulder almost became one of them. He omitted his own death from the story.

He then told Jeffrey about the nephew he didn't know he had. He smiled weakly as Krycek tried explaining that he didn't know for sure the baby was Mulder's, but it was more than likely anyways.

"I came to rescue you in hopes of finding Mulder, as well," he continued, his gaze unwavering from Jeffrey.

"What about the baby?" asked the other man. "You said he was...different. Like, he has powers."

"Oh, it's no mystery that he's something other than human; but he's different from the others. From them all," Krycek replied. "He's...special."

"So why aren't you helping him instead of Mulder?"

"Because helping Mulder _is_ the only way to help him."

There was a brief pause as Jeffrey contemplated this.

"So, what happens to me now? If what you say about this is all true, then...then I'm a wanted man, aren't I?" he asked.

"As wanted as I am, and Mulder," Krycek replied. "Welcome to the club, Jeff."

Jeffrey's hand wandered up to his face, which bore no surprise, just a trace of what could be sadness.

"What can I do about my face?"

"I'm no surgeon," Krycek shrugged. "But I know a guy." He tapped on his fake arm. "Don't know how soon I can get in contact with him, though. For now we have to stay here and lay low. I'm sure there will be suits around, looking for us. But we can't leave yet."

Jeffrey sighed, and pulled his legs up onto the bed. He hugged them against his chest and stared at the floor.

Krycek stood and headed for the door, turning on the television as he passed it.

"Wait, where are you going?" Jeffrey asked, panic seeping slightly into his face.

"I haven't eaten in nearly two days," Krycek responded bitterly.

"Oh."

"And Jeff?"

"What?"

"I saved you, back then, because you needed to know the truth before you got involved," he spoke quietly. Jeffrey stared. "It was a luxury I was never offered."

The next noise was the sound of the door closing behind him.


	8. Pathways

The light was still on when he re-entered the hotel room, accompanied by the flickering of the television. The temperature between the baked outside and the hotel interior did not change, either. Carrying in a large, plastic bag, he shuffled wearily into the room and found Jeffrey sitting solidly, curled up into himself, watching the news with wide, wet eyes. Krycek paused, trying to discern if the other man had noticed him or not.

"Jeff?"

"So much has changed," was the croaking, quiet response. "I was gone so long...it's all gotten worse, hasn't it?"

"It always gets worse before it gets better," Krycek recited, digging into the plastic bag.

"That's something I find hard to believe, nowadays," Jeffrey murmured, eyes still stuck to the screen.

Krycek looked up, his hand still around some fabric in the bag. He stopped.

"...the suspect is a Caucasian male, between 25-35, with short dark hair and hazel eyes--"

"It's you," Jeffrey said bluntly.

_No shit._

"...he is wanted for trespassing and stealing government property--"

Jeffrey looked away from the screen. Krycek bristled.

Government property. This man, this poor, young, disfigured man, was only "government property" to them. Property. Like a piece of furniture, or land, or a car. Furiously, Krycek stepped up to the television and turned it off, not even hesitating, staring menacingly at the blank screen even after the reporter with the fake smile had disappeared. Jeffrey did not object.

"Here," Krycek grumbled, flinging what had been in his hand at Jeffrey, who caught it, reflexes working faster than he'd expected them to.

"Clothes?" he asked, examining the obviously second-hand garments. "Why?"

"If you haven't noticed, you've been wearing nothing but a hospital gown all day," Krycek replied with a cocked eyebrow.

If Jeffrey still had distinguishable cheeks, they would have probably turned red as he looked down, then quickly scampered off to the bathroom.

Krycek sighed and looked in the mirror, slipping off his leather jacket and letting it slide to the floor in a messy heap. He realized he was still wearing the same shirts he'd been wearing the day he'd been shot; black dress shirt over white undershirt. Both were darkened with sweat and smudged with dirt. He certainly looked the part of a criminal. The bullet holes in his sleeve didn't help. Noticing his prosthetic arm, slightly dented and dirtied, he snickered darkly, feeling suddenly like he belonged in _The Fugitive_.

Dropping the dress shirt to the floor as well, he sat down on the other bed, digging back into the bag for a sandwich wrapped in plastic and a cold beer, both of which he downed in record time.

The clock beside the bed read 12:31 and he realized that he was moderately tired. After all, he had driven halfway across America, broken into a government facility, stolen a test subject, outrun them and fought a supersoldier all within the past 24-hour period. Just a day in the life. He figured he deserved sleep, this time.

Jeffrey returned soon and crawled into his own bed, and they flicked off the light. The room still glowed faintly with moonlight, and some coyotes howled off somewhere not-too-distant, meshing with the noises of the occasional car or truck driving through, and the buzzing of the bug-catchers and hotel sign. Among these sounds, later, Krycek began to hear another noise; something similar to sniffling.

Looking carefully over his shoulder, Krycek could only see Jeffrey's back. His shoulders were shaking slightly. Was he crying? It was more than obvious he had been when Krycek had come back to the hotel. Awkwardly, he turned back over to face the wall.

"Alex?"

Krycek tensed as the cracked voice crawled through the room. First-name basis, were they?

"Yeah?"

"I never thanked you for saving me."

"I didn't think you'd be that grateful."

Jeffrey half-snickered, half-sniffled, in a sarcastic way.

"Maybe it _will _get better."

"...yeah, maybe."

"Do you think they'll find us?"

_What is this, a slumber party?_ Krycek thought bitterly as his eyelids attempted freefalling.

"If they do I'll shoot their groin out."

He couldn't see, but he knew Jeffrey had a giant, malicious grin across his face.

"That's good. Good night, then."

"Mrrph."

--

"There's a car out there," Gibson stated, five words that Mulder wasn't particularly pleased in hearing as soon as he got up that morning.

He was totally stiff from sleeping on the ratty mat on the trailer floor, not to mention a little bruised from last night's previous encounter with the flat side of a car. Now the cars were back to take their revenge, he figured.

"Who's in it?" he asked weakly, glaring into his cold coffee.

"I'm not sure. They're too far away for me to really be able to hear their thoughts," Gibson squinted through the blinds, the morning light glancing maliciously off his glasses and into Mulder's eyes. "He's still moving, though, and not coming this way. But his car is black. That's always a bad thing."

Mulder grunted and internally mused over the government's failed attempt at remaining vehicularily inconspicuous.

"Listen, Mulder," the psychic dropped down from the counter he'd been standing on, which rocked the trailer an unpleasant amount. "Maybe you should stay in town for a couple days. I don't know for sure, but it seems like they're looking for something out here."

"You think? Only other people that come out here are lost tourists and illegal immigrants," said the other man, rather bitterly.

Gibson frowned.

"You don't have to STAY there. Just for a bit. And I know, don't worry about me, I'll still have Eric around."

Mulder sighed.

"If you think so, what can I do?"


	9. Desert Heat

Krycek looked for Mulder. He did it with the notion that he would find Mulder. Yet so far, this seemingly simple task for an experienced assassin was a bit more tricky than he'd anticipated. When the man went into hiding, he meant it.

As he stepped through the dirty streets of the slums of town somethingorother of Nowhere, New Mexico, his mind was beginning to draw up in horrific detail how much he'd really have to search. Which made it even worse was the sight of a black car lurking evilly on the streets, creeping forward in a manner that would be more befitting something with scales. Good old government agents, they never missed a chance to look like blood-sucking reptiles.

Smiling with the friendliness of a great white, Krycek ducked around a corner and into a very unnecessary tourist shop.

He waited, leafing through tacky magazines that he realized were in Spanish a tad too late. His escape attempt had also been too late, it seemed, as soon enough a suited man pushed ominously through the doorway. The man was easy enough to identify, as again the government seemed to take pride in their ability to look like they were as such, even when it was not all that practical. Regardless, Krycek slouched and moved further into the store, past a couple of smelly locals and into a pathetically small section carrying post cards and calendars. He was very aware of his gun at this point, but that probably wasn't of much use. The guy was probably a supersoldier, and he was unsure if he'd get the opportunity to shoot his spine out in the middle of a cramped store.

Emotionless eyes bored a hole in his skull, and Krycek came to the realization that he was probably the only Caucasian in the store. Street, possibly. Speaking of being conspicuous. Like a barge, the supersoldier pushed past the counter and made a very definite path towards him. Krycek watched in the mirror at the top of the rotating fridge magnet stand in front of him. In his peripherals, he saw the merchandise below, and a spark of inspiration ignited a wildfire in his mind.

It didn't take long for the man to reach him, and as Krycek watched him reach for the gun at his belt, he turned around and slapped a handful of magnets into his face. For a horrified instant, he realized that if he was wrong, this was possibly the stupidest action moment in the history of forever.

Luckily, within a moment and to both of their surprise, the man screamed and dropped his weapon. Krycek didn't wallow in his satisfaction for very long and took the opportunity to run like hell.

The supersoldier, recovering slowly from the shock of pain, reached up and tore the floppy square from his cheek. He felt the spot where it had been, and felt the closest to human emotion he ever would.

Fear.

The spot on his cheek had solidified into a small square of metal.

--

In his days of trigger-pulling and blackmail, Krycek never thought he could bring someone down with the sheer force of a fridge magnet with a picture of a sunglass-wearing cactus on it.

He surprised himself a lot these days.

Another surprise came from the fact that he realized he no longer intended to kidnap Mulder and give him to the conspiracy. For one, after having his face magnetized and having his friend's vertebrae dislodged from his body, the supersoldiers wouldn't be very open-minded about him. However, even this did not seem like the main reason. The idea had been annoyingly clawing at his brain cells since he decided to hunt Mulder down, and he was unsure of how to react to it. Slap it? Pet it?

Hands in his pockets, he haughtily walked down the road. His car was parked a good distance from where he had been, which probably had not been the best of ideas, but at least the giant scrape across his fender wouldn't be noticed by the supersoldiers.

That had obviously done him so much good.

Finding his car along the stretch of road where he'd left it, Krycek continued down at a much more pleasant speed. Down the stretch of nothing that continued forever into nothingness that would result in...

Krycek glowered.

He had been following Mulder's tracks from the turnoff he had taken the previous night, and realized that was only the first step of a journey of a thousand miles. Quite literally, in fact, and quite possibly leading him nowhere then stopping to laugh at him for it.

From that direction, though, someone else was taking a different journey. A familiar, beat-up red car zoomed past Krycek in a matter of moments.

He looked in his rear-view mirror.

He smirked.

_Thank you, deus ex machina._

--

If anyone had ever tried to follow a paranoid former FBI agent in a black car on an abandoned road in broad daylight, they would have found it quite annoying, just like Krycek did as he realized he couldn't get closer to Mulder's car, which was a red speck barely below the horizon. They passed right by the town and continued on, through the afternoon and just as evening lifted its head and sniffed the musky air, they pulled into a city. Things only got harder from there.

The traffic was not overly heavy, and the streets weren't so poorly built. Still Krycek crept along carefully, tensing at the sight of any other darkly-coloured vehicles and jumping at sudden movements. If the first thing Mulder did when he got to him was shoot him in the face, he decided he would come back as a ghost and haunt the guy until he died.

Somehow, though, it seemed that Mulder hadn't noticed him. The pace of the car seemed leisurely and made sense. He let himself draw nearer to the car as it drove along the service road, and pulled off towards a building that looked like it had once housed pyromaniacal monkeys on acid. Krycek drove past it, pulled off into a back road and circled around. After parking behind the building, he made his way around to the front.

Evening shade hid him as he slunk against the wall. He could see Mulder walking across the parking lot and towards the entry. Krycek felt a slight thrill as he felt he was drawing nearer to his prize. Though he was usually fantastic at controlling his emotions, he now felt that everything was about to drop directly into his hands.

He looked up. The fire exit was easy enough to access from the ground...

--

Mulder had an illegal gun on one hip, a bag of clothes and necessities in one hand, and a bothersome feeling of foreboding buzzing within his skull and torso.

He opened room 23.

He sighed. Dark, ratty and terribly bleak. That's how everything looked lately. What was worse, no Scully in the room over for him to bother in the middle of the night, or have a drink with. Just some possible crack dealers and women of questionable profession.

It was a small suite. There was a bed in the middle of what he would have thought was the living room, which merged with the kitchen, and two more doors going off into the darkness at the opposite side. A large window with the blinds closed sat diagonally from him.

He stepped through the door, shut it behind him, and felt a fist of knuckles crack into the back of his head.

Reeling forwards and dropping his bag, he didn't even have time to reach for his gun before he was grabbed by the back of his shirt, spun onto his back and thrust down onto the bed. He was a little concerned by the fact that the bed crunched, but was currently faced with more pressing matters. For instance, the gun that was now sizing him up.

Then he saw who was holding the gun, and the New Mexico tan ran from his face.

Alex Krycek stood over him, eyes glittering in the vague glow from between the blinds.

"What's the matter, Mulder? Seen a ghost?"


	10. Unrequited

Mulder choked.

"N--n--you're dead. You can't be," he spluttered. "No!"

"We thought you were dead, too," Krycek's expression dropped. "But you proved us all very wrong."

Mulder stopped and stared up at Krycek, who now towered up over him. Realization washed over his face and most of his panic backed away. He breathed, feeling suddenly very hopeless as he remembered what had happened in the parking garage. Then he remembered something else.

"You're not going to kiss me again, are you?" asked Mulder, bitterly.

"That depends. Do you want me to?" Krycek retorted with a very sharp leer.

Mulder replied with a dumbfounded look.

Krycek snorted and, to Mulder's simultaneous surprise, relief and apprehension, backed off. He walked hurriedly towards the window and peered through the blinds.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but--" he turned back to Mulder. He smirked. The other man had stood up and now had his gun on him.

"I had no problem with seeing you fall back then, don't think my mind has changed now," Mulder said in a voice that would make hydrochloric acid slink away in pain.

Krycek cocked his head, lifted his gun by a finger, and dropped it to the ground.

"Put that away, Mulder. You're not going to get anything accomplished by pulling that trigger."

"Oh really? I think I'd be doing the world a favour."

"'sides, you don't have it in you to kill me. You never did," Krycek continued smoothly, his hand now in his pocket. His eyes locked with Mulder's, yet they seemed a lot less caustic then they ought to.

Mulder caught the connection. He almost faltered, but stopped himself.

"What the hell do you possibly want?"

"Exactly what you want, my friend."

Mulder gritted his teeth.

"Don't you DARE call me that!" he screamed, drawing closer, pressing the gun into Krycek's chest. "I am no friend of yours, you son-of-a-bitch. Do you hear me?!"

Krycek blinked.

Mulder squeezed the gun with strangulating force, then relaxed.

"I'm sick of it. People like you, who exist only to burn and break everything around them. Why? Did you ever once give it a thought?" he continued furiously, voice straining over its own intensity. "What about your own life? What about your parents?"

Krycek's expression went from stoic to grim.

"My parents are dead."

"Well, that's something we have in common, no thanks to you."

Krycek had lived to obey and betray. He had learned to sever the cords that bound his head to his heart, his mind to his soul. Yet through all of it, it seemed they had reattached. Now, they were taut and trembling with a rage that had suddenly forsaken its eternal dormancy.

With a sudden jerk he flailed his arm up and smashed Mulder's wrist. The gun flew from his hand, and Krycek pushed him backwards.

"You think I like it? Being exploited and lied to in a sick game entitled "The Truth", where the rules mean do as your told and believe it to be right? Wanting to rewrite the rules every step of the way, but without the pen?" he roared, slapping Mulder to the ground. "When there's no choice but to play their game, or to lose everything?"

Krycek shook, sweat forming on his forehead, his face reflecting every emotion he'd been told to conceal; the same emotions that had come forth before he was shot, but replayed tenfold.

Mulder looked up from where he had fallen, rooted to the spot. He opened his mouth but found no words. Never had he considered Krycek to be frightening; he had only hated him, been disgusted by him. Yet here was the first time Mulder felt fear in his presence. It was not the fear like the fear one gets of the monsters under their bed or the things that go bump in the night. It was the fear of something very, very real.

Abruptly, Krycek stopped shaking. The sweat seemed to dissipate from his face and his hand unclenched, burrowing back into the safety of his pocket.

"You and I have more in common than you know, brother."

The silence was strangling. Mulder stared with a glazed expression as his mind waged a civil war on what to make of it all.

Krycek stepped towards Mulder's gun, laying helpless. He picked it up, and turned back towards Mulder, who flinched. Krycek simply stepped towards him and knelt. He took the gun and pressed it gently into Mulder's hand, then closed his fingers around it. Then he looked up into his face.

"What I want, Mulder, is not to tell you what to do. It's to help you in what you do. There's no way you can fight a one-man battle against these people, these things...no matter how noble you think you are. It doesn't work like that. You need help," he said quietly.

"There's a good book out there about a little boy and a hungry wolf, Krycek, I think you should read it. How do I know you're not lying this time?" Mulder murmured.

Krycek gave him a hard stare.

"Remember what I told you when we first met?"

Mulder did. He flew back in time to the moment the tacky-suited, eager young man had first extended a hand that was left unshaken. He nodded weakly.

"Mulder..." Krycek trailed off a little and his gaze broke slightly. "Those weren't lies."

The other man had no response. His profiling mind was lifting its head and sniffing the air, cogs and wheels starting up again as they burned up new, raw material.

Krycek continued to stare into his face, studying every inch though with each analyzing sweep, his eyes never stayed on Mulder's for longer than the shortest instant.

"It...it was always interesting to hear. Back at the academy. How the X-Files should have been closed. How you should give up. What was truly fascinating about it was how you never did. Few of us stood up for what you did down there, and it was not always because we believed in the paranormal, but because of your tenacity. Your pure belief in what you did. It was...admirable," Krycek's head gave a strange, small jerk as he spoke, and the flicker of a smile passed over his lips.

While his eyes remained entwined with Mulder's, their hardness had ebbed away. Realizing this, he quickly pulled his jaw back into line, clenching the muscles in his neck.

Mulder realized that Krycek's hand was still holding his to the gun. The Russian stood, and the grip was released. The gun dropped back to the floor.

Krycek sat on the bed, folding one leg up so his ankle rested on his knee. He laid his hand on his thigh, and didn't speak.

Meanwhile, Mulder's head raced. In describing Krycek, the word currently coming to mind was "soft". He realized, however, that was somewhat inappropriate. Krycek was many things, but soft was not one of them. A more suiting word, he decided, was "brittle". Something that had once been hard, but had taken too many blows, too much weather. Even the biggest mountain could only take so much.

Pulling himself off the floor, Mulder hesitantly took a seat beside his adversary, who didn't even glance his way. Something that felt forebodingly similar to guilt pricked at Mulder's heart before he chased it away.

"I know how to kill the supersoldiers."

Suddenly shocked out of the realm of woe, Mulder swivelled his head towards Krycek, who was staring off into space. He was about to frantically ask "how", but thought better of it.

"What do you want in exchange for that, then?"

"Trust."

Mulder scoffed.

"Give me a good reason why I should trust you now, of all times."

Krycek still didn't return his gaze.

"Because I never gave up on you, and I'm not about to just because you refuse to see past the dimensions of your own reality," Krycek moved his head towards Mulder, but his eyes didn't meet his. "I always wanted to believe, Mulder, and in the time where you didn't I was the one who restored that faith."

Mulder's mind glanced back to the night in his apartment as he sat at gunpoint on the floor.

"What I gave you was hope, whether you believed it or not, and I..." Krycek broke off.

Was that a voice crack? Mulder was beginning to realize the increase in the frequency the word "I" came up.

"You..."

A word that offered a personal attachment...something an assassin would never use.

"You were my hope, Mulder. Hope for resistance; for standing up for what was right, despite the naysayers. Despite people...people like me."

He turned away again, darkness engulfing his features. Mulder's face was stoic, but he remained bewildered all the same as he watched Krycek, who's voice had pinched near the end of his sentence. Silence moved on, and Mulder fought with what to say or do. He felt more confused right then than he had for a long time.

"I thought it would end when I killed him."

The cacophony of Mulder's thoughts dispersed and he stared worriedly at Krycek.

"Killed who?"

"C. G. B. Spender," he enunciated every syllable.

Mulder gawked. His mouth hung open and his head began to lean strangely to one side.

"No way. You don't just..." Mulder realized Krycek wasn't making any attempt to do anything and his sentence died. "You realized that's twice that you've killed my father."

Krycek gave him a half-hearted, hurt glare.

Mulder looked away as the impact of the revelation hit him full force. He always expected Krycek to betray everyone he worked with, though he never saw it working that way with the Smoking Man.

"How many men need to die for something they call the 'greater good'?" Krycek murmured, once again fixated on the darkness.

Once more, Mulder held no response.

After some more time remaining in the sickening silence of the black, dingy suite, Krycek finally stood and moved shortly towards the door. Mulder reached out to grab his arm, to restrain him, but was intercepted by Krycek's hand. He felt paper between his fingers as the hand left as quick as it came and Krycek's ragged, frosted voice pierced through the black.

"My hotel and room number. Call me some time," he said dryly, then continued towards the door.

"Krycek, wait. Why...why don't you stay here?" Mulder asked, voice wavering a little uncertainly.

Krycek stopped and looked back at him, his face lacking the usual stone etch and now coated with what could have been mild astonishment.

"Don't get any ideas, it's not because I trust you," Mulder clarified. "Actually, it's the opposite. I want you here to keep an eye on you. Nothing you've said has me convinced that I'm safe here, let alone with you out there."

Nodding jaggedly, Krycek shrugged and turned back to face the bed, and Mulder.

"So do I get the bed or the floor?" he asked with a trace of contempt.

"Try the bathtub," Mulder grinned maliciously as he moved to pick up his bag.

Krycek stared.

"You can't be seriou--"

"You want my trust, how about stick around for more than a day without killing somebody, huh?"

Lips hardening into a thin line, Krycek skulked towards his would-be bedroom.

"Wait."

He stopped, rather peevishly, and looked back once more.

A pair of handcuffs dangled around Mulder's index finger.

Krycek smirked.

"Kinky."

"Shut up, Krycek."


	11. Fog

Water again.

Healer. Destroyer. It seemed unsure of what purpose it served in this rippling hallucination. Ebbing and flowing to no rhythm of wind or earth, tides rising and falling with his own breath, the sea stretched on for an eternity obscured by the waving skies he felt he could not quite see. Somewhere in between it all he was suspended, forced to stare out through eyes of stars over and through the bubbling water.

Some believed that dreams could be symbolic. It was something Fox Mulder may have believed.

The thought rocked his mind and he fell into the tides, but he felt no splash and saw no effect. No noise marked his entry. Where ripples should have emanated, the waters only stilled, and he had breached the surface of another reality. A reality where he could see a face...

_His_ face.

He tried to scream.

--

Pressure like a compressed sun was the first thing Krycek felt as he awoke. He grimaced as the pain flared with the thought, rolling and finding his body unwilling to comply. Opening a weary eye, he remembered that his single arm was chained to the hot water tap of a bathtub that had seen better years.

He gasped, eyes squeezing shut, rotating into what would be the closest to comfortable in such a space and tried to focus. It was all too familiar, the sharp burn, coming from a spot right behind his forehead.

As fast as it had come the pain retreated, and Krycek sighed, letting his head fall backwards into the smooth side of the tub. Now instead of the wicked pain his mind was now filled with worse thoughts as his conscience wandered back to the previous events.

He suddenly felt exposed, a feeling he'd trained himself to cover the instant it reared its head. The confession had flown from his mouth faster than he could build the dam, but he wondered if the entire impact of the flood had reached Mulder's ears. He was uncertain if he wanted them to. It had been so long since he'd stated such a deep truth to himself that the feeling left behind had become an almost physical sensation. Yet with Mulder, it had been so easy to release it all. Now that he thought back to it, it always had been.

Memories stirring from their resting places, he was back in time again.

He remembered the first time.

The first time he had heard them speaking, at the academy, of what should be done about the tiny paranormal division, and the first time he spoke in its defence. He remembered the first time that the figure in the hallway, reeking of smoke, had approached him and offered him an opportunity to do so on such a larger scale...

Then he was looking into the face of the man for whom he'd risked his words, but the man did not look back in the way he'd hoped.

The memories from there on out only got worse, and Krycek tried to turn to press himself into the wall, but his arm was locked and wouldn't allow it.

They weren't lies. He knew the truth. Everything he had told Mulder, for the brief time he had been his partner, he had spoken with heart. At least, most of what he had said, and what he had done.

Krycek tried to force his mind back into slumber, but the thing clawing behind his mind was beginning to break free and sink its teeth. Flashbacks flew by like a strobe light, and he saw things played back in horrifying detail. A cityscape from the top of a building where a man lay, his skin already cold, stood out to him as if he was back there, hands groping for the object they would never find.

"You did the right thing," were the words that had been spoken softly into his ear.

He had believed them. At least, he had wanted to so deeply, and the words still had yet to reach his ears so many more times, but by a voice not mellow and comforting, but aging and scorched. Yet, as he had come to see, those words had meant nothing. They were a mask over a bleeding face, the suffering from all those to whom the phrase had been attatched. All the ones on whom he'd pulled the trigger.

By the time he'd seen through the cloud of smoke, it had all been too late. He tried to tell himself that he'd somehow made up for it all through the incident in the stairwell, but something nagged him otherwise. A nightmare.

_Oh God, oh God..._

Mind writhing within its binds, Krycek pushed his cheek into the cool tub wall, shuddering a tremble so minute that it wouldn't be noticed at first glance. All this time a barrier had sat between the name of Alex Krycek, and the person it belonged to. Now that barrier was falling, but the contents on either side refused to mix.

The urge to scream was almost overbearing. In times of such stress, he knew this to happen occasionally. The sweating, the heavy breathing, the shakes, all feelings that brought him back to times like the ones spent locked on a rusty ship with a gun in the face and a lover out the door. Usually, though, he could tame them. This time, they would not rear to him.

Choking a little on nothing, he tugged weakly on the handcuffs. They tinkled fiercely in response and he only slid painfully into his prosthetic arm. Fury tore at his throat, but its peak was stomped down by another emotion that left it wounded, lying in its shadow. A feeling he hated even more.

As his throat spasmed again, in a wave of emotion almost alien to him, he began to feel the infuriated beating of his heart slow, and his breath change from a typhoon to a breeze. Still panting softly, he felt the fruits of his efforts begin to blossom and sleep wrap its hand around his once more. He welcomed it, still shaking as he tried to press himself into its arms, the only arms that would ever take him.

One last time, he choked, though the feeling was less wrenching than it had been before. He recognized what it meant and pushed it off, squeezing his eyes closed as he chased all thoughts from his mind, all unwanted entities from himself. All left, except one memory, which still drilled on even as the lights began to dim again.

He remembered the first time he had been called a coward.

He remembered how he slowly came to believe it.

--

Mulder hardly slept that night, as he too remembered. In between black dreams, he remembered the death of his friend and mentor, and the last words he had failed to obey. The words that could have saved his father. For one measly second back in time he had felt a sort of odd sympathy, even friendliness towards his new partner. That is what cost him. Why would there be a world in which hope and trust could cause you pain?

Yet, despite the betrayal, Mulder had felt something in Krycek's words. The turncoat's usual manner of speaking, straight and low, had suddenly dissipated, and though Mulder had blocked himself off from any inkling to even half-heartedly believe him, found it hard to disbelieve his strained, trembling speech. Maybe it was a possibility that...

No, Mulder told himself.

This is how it always happened. His better nature embracing a rabid beast. The want to adopt a monster beyond saving. He bulldozed aside his conflicted emotions and turned to his mind, instead.

He asked himself what Krycek would have to gain. Surely he was intelligent enough to see that becoming a supersoldier would strip him of his own will, so he couldn't be after that. Why aid the destruction of mankind, when Krycek had always been out for his own? Obviously, saving mankind encompassed his own survival. Mulder figured there had to be another reason, but he hadn't the slightest idea on what it was. He did, however, draw a connection between Krycek's frantic state in the parking garage and what had happened just hours ago. This connection, for whatever reason, had made Mulder slightly uncomfortable.

Since he had joined the FBI and even before, Mulder had trained himself to not see things as black and white. As a profiler, doing so would be hard; everyone had a motive, and every little thing in their life effected this. He had decided then that nobody was evil, and yet as the conspiracy stepped further into the light, this idea was something that slid between his fingers. Steadily he'd picked it back up, but his grasp had never been full. Now he felt he was just tightening his fist, but it was not as comforting as it should be. He wanted to see them as good or evil. He wanted to resort to this simplistic outlook.

He couldn't.

Mulder knew that it would be simple enough to get up, walk over to the bathroom and pump a final bullet back into the sleeping man, but he also knew he couldn't do it. Krycek was right. He could never kill him, for whatever infernal reason. However, it came to mind that him killing his enemies was only running further from the problem instead of facing it.

Stiffly, Mulder turned over and caught a glimpse of the window. Daylight was beginning to filter through the blinds.

--

"You said you could kill the supersoldiers."

Krycek, now handcuffed to the arm of a chair, tried awkwardly to eat a few measly scraps of bacon Mulder had offered hesitantly. He looked up at his captor.

"I don't know for sure if it can kill them, but at least it's a start," he stated, then tried to lean back and failed. "Magnets."

Mulder stared.

"Are you joking?"

"Why would--think that through, Mulder," Krycek smirked sardonically. "I'm not suggesting we chase them around throwing fridge magnets at them. I'm talking metals. Magnetite. That kind of stuff. It makes sense, sorta. Doesn't it? They're...metallic, in a way. Iron. Again, as far as killing them goes we can't be sure, but it definitely hurts them."

Mulder rubbed his hand with his chin. As much as he hated to admit it, the idea did make a marginal amount of sense.

"So where do we get magnetite?" he asked a little dumbly.

Krycek shrugged.

"I don't know about buying the stuff. But there are quarries around here, I think."

"Are you actually suggesting we steal from mines?" Mulder exclaimed.

"Well, you decide. Steal a few rocks and save the world, or let your conscience get the better of you and everyone dies."

Mulder sighed.

"Alright. Fine. Let's go break heaps of magnetite out of a wall of rock. Then what? Make swords or bullets or something?"

"That sounds fun."

"You're not helping."

"You said you didn't want my help," Krycek retorted.

"Honestly, can you blame me? When was the last time that ended well?" Mulder snapped back.

"Oh, I don't know," the gravel in Krycek's voice escalated to boulders. "Maybe when you put away a group of terrorists, or saved a rebel leader, or drove away from Billy Miles still in one piece or, maybe, when you were about to walk away from a wrecked car with your head twisted up into your ass."

Mulder faltered.

"That was _you_?"

"Didn't you hear the news? I'm a wanted man."

Mulder tried to come up with a response but found doubt nagging at him again. There was no reason for Krycek to have risked himself to save him the other night. Of course, there was the possibility that it was just an elaborate ploy...

Mulder got up and stomped past the table, Krycek, and towards the coffee pot, which he angrily lifted, poured into his cup, and the proceeded to accidentally slop all over the front of his shirt. He swore. Krycek snickered.

"Karma."

Mulder turned around and smacked him upside the back of his head.

"Jesus, Mulder! Can you NOT--AUGH."

Krycek struggled to rub the back of his head. He finally stopped, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Mulder went over to his bag and dug through it until he produced a new shirt, which he then changed in to. Krycek glared at his now empty plate. Then Mulder turned to leave.

"Hey. Hey!" Krycek shouted after him. "Where are you going, man?! You can't leave me alone here..."

"Yes I can," Mulder grumbled, before shutting the door behind him.

As he walked down the hallway, he smirked bitterly as the muffled syllables of Russian curses weakly pawed at his ears.

It went on like this for another day, with even less shared between the two men. Mulder would disappear early on and come back later, giving Krycek a little to eat before sending him to the couch to sleep. Krycek initially took this as a small act of kindness, but he hadn't forgotten his role as Mulder's punching bag.

He did, however, until later on the third day, realize he'd forgotten Jeffrey Spender.


	12. Shift

Jeffrey sat with his bloodshot eyes glued to the glass of the television.

You could be locked up in a government facility for ANY extended period of time, but when you got out you could always rely on television for the same old crap. Sitcoms, reality shows, crime shows...they'd all been the source of Jeffrey's attention since Krycek had left.

How many days ago was that, now?

It was hard to tell, even with the stack of pizza boxes on the ground. Jeffrey was getting awfully sick of pizza, but he didn't have all that much choice. It's not as if he could leave the hotel room; a severely disfigured man might draw some attention in a town so blatantly travelled by supersoldiers.

It was then that the phone rang and Jeffrey jumped three feet straight into the air. The ring only lasted a second but time slowed down horribly as the man sized up the device. Ideas played tug-o-war with his mind, contemplating whether or not he should answer it.

It could be Krycek, with some direly important information to relay. Or it could but a supersoldier. But if it was a supersoldier, why make phone calls?

Jeffrey eyed the gun Krycek had left on the desk beside the television unit, then reached over and plucked the phone from the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Is this a secure line?"

Jeffrey froze. It was a woman's voice.

"Who is this?"

"Are you Jeffrey Spender?"

"_Who is this_?!"

"I believe we met some time ago, but I fear you probably wouldn't recognize me based on my previous form."

"Likewise."

Jeffrey's mind raced. Women. What women did he meet a few years ago? Agent Scully? No, this woman had a slight, somewhat implacable accent. Then something clicked.

"Marita Covarrubias?"

"So you do remember. Good. Now you need to listen to me carefully, Jeffrey. Where is Krycek?"

"You mean you don't know?" Jeffrey, who had relaxed a little at her recognition, tensed once again.

"He was with you. Where did he go?"

"To find Mulder."

"Alone?"

"I'd be sort of useless to him."

He heard Marita pause, and exhale slightly.

"There have been incidents, here. The supersoldiers are mobile. I'd think it to be dangerous to remain in your immediate area."

At this point Jeffrey began to panic.

"What do you want me to do?" he cried. "I...I can't walk very well anymore...and people would notice me! My face is horribly scarred."

"Then lie low. I'll do what I can to help you get out of there discreetly, but you need to help me find Krycek."

"I'm sorry, I--" Jeffrey's mind raced. "I don't--"

Click.

"Marita?...Marita!"

---

It was not fun to saw through the chains of handcuffs with a butter knife. Especially when you were holding said knife with your teeth. Krycek had been working at the tedious task since he swiped the utensil at breakfast that morning, and was eagerly awaiting for it to release itself. It probably wouldn't have lasted this long, but he HAD to have gone and gotten his arm sawed off. Worst mistake of his life.

His efforts paid off; with a _clink,_ the metal snapped metal and he found himself freed of his binds, spitting the butter knife out and sitting up, stretching for the first time in a while, then going to make himself some lunch, a meal he was awaiting greedily.

Of course, Mulder then went and came home at such an inopportune time.

As Krycek froze, a piece of toast hanging from his mouth, Mulder hardly seemed to notice his escape.

"We have to go," Mulder muttered, rushing in, throwing things into a bag. "Now."

Krycek raised an eyebrow, still consuming his lunch.

"What are you waiting for?"

"What are we running from, exactly?"

Mulder stopped, looked at him, seemed to notice the lack of handcuffs but didn't seem to care.

"What do you think?"

"Ah."

"Come on, get to the car."

---

Krycek wasn't expecting them to pull up to a dingy trailer in the middle of the desert, nor was he expecting Gibson Praise to get out when Mulder pushed him ahead towards the door, gun at his back.

The boy and the man exchanged brief glances.

"What's he doing here?" they both managed in exact, uncanny unison, that despite being so unlikely, happens so often anyways.

"He's one of the guys that kidnapped me!"

"Krycek thinks he knows what--" Mulder tried to intervene.

"Hey, keep that freaky little mind-reader away from me!" Krycek cried, squirming back against Mulder.

"Gibson--"

"Aaah!"

Mulder sighed, frowned, and thought very angry thoughts. Gibson paused and gave him a terrified look. The ex-agent then kneed Krycek in the tailbone.

"Ow."

"Mulder! Those thoughts are not very nice!"

"Neither is interrupting," Mulder retorted. "Now let's be quiet, I'm sure every official within a five mile radius can hear you two."

Krycek was pushed up the steps and into the trailer. Every step of the way he saw Gibson's eyes on him, and he tried to recoil away. He remembered too well the feeling of the psychic's eyes not only on his body but his mind. It was not a feeling he, in any way, enjoyed. So prying...the kid had no sense of respect for privacy.

Except now Gibson was giving him a very peculiar look...

"Now, listen to me, Gibson," Mulder said, dumping Krycek into a seat and turning his attention to the boy. "We have to go. Don't follow us. Stay here, stay safe. Eric will bring you food, alright?"

"Mulder, they'll hurt you if they find you."

"Then let's hope they won't find me."

Krycek cleared his throat.

"Okay, wait. What?"

"You and I are going on an adventure, Krycek," Mulder gave him a wicked grin.

"Oh, God."

Mulder tossed him a CD.

"Take this out to the car, won't you?"

Krycek eyed the disc. Curious. Was it that it was generally unimportant, or did Mulder trust him enough to give him classified information?

He decided it was probably just his porn stash, then manoeuvred out to the car.

---

"He's not normal."

"What was your first clue?"

The two looked out the window towards the car, where Krycek was entertaining himself by adjusting the rear-view mirror.

"No, I mean..." Gibson muttered. "I met him before, but he's different now."

"How so?"

Gibson stared, unblinking, as if trying to read the other man's mind at a distance.

"Like...he's not completely human."

Mulder gave the boy a bleak stare.

"He's like me."

They stood silently for a minute. Thoughts ravaged Mulder's mind, ones he hoped Gibson to pick up on, but he was too busy concentrating on Krycek. A sweat broke out on Mulder's neck, and he rubbed his chin. How? How could Krycek be like Gibson?

"Because..." the boy answered almost immediately. "His mind...the way he thinks...it's just _different._..No, I don't think he can read minds like me. But...he can do something."

Mulder shook his head, biting his lip, the way he grew when stressed.

"He's telling you the truth, though," Gibson said suddenly, staring up at Mulder. "He really does want to help."

The man stopped, looking at the psychic in disbelief. He didn't want to believe him.

"You're sure?"

Gibson gave him an exasperated stare.

Mulder shrugged and turned back to the window. Krycek was done playing with the mirror, noticed him, and waved awkwardly.

"What do I do, Gibson?"

"Trust him."

"How? You know what he's done," Mulder sighed. "Even if he does want to help...what if I don't want to help him?"

"I don't know," Gibson replied. "But...I liked him. He wasn't as mean as the others."

"Krycek? Not mean? You have to be kidding."

"He was still human. I mean, not in the way that we look the same, but those bad men did things that changed them. It took away their hearts. But he wasn't like that. That's why I was never afraid of him."

Mulder ran a hand down his face, contemplating the situation in the best equilibrium of heart and mind he could muster. Gibson eyed him.

"I know you can't read minds, Mulder. But at least try sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'll let you figure it out."


	13. No Return

"So, you think you could lend me a little light here?"

Krycek glared at his cohort, sliding into the driver's seat. Gibson stood on the front step of the trailer, looking sombrely out to the vehicle. Krycek tried to avoid his unsettling stare.

Mulder gently thumped his palms on the steering wheel, mulling the thought over as he chewed on his lip. He looked at his acquaintance.

"For the time I've been here I've been working."

Krycek waited. He gave a sarcastic nod when Mulder didn't seem to get the clue to continue.

"Undercover. A land surveyor," he looked back out the windshield. "They say there are strange things in the desert and they're right."

"A land surveyor?" Krycek said.

"They always look for the forged FBI documents or driver's licenses. I've managed both. You think _that_ would have stopped me?"

Krycek nodded. "Your nerd buddies?"

"Couldn't live without 'em."

"So. What's on this?" said Krycek. He waved the CD.

"That?" Mulder asked. He started the engine of the car.

He looked back at Krycek, giving him a weird little grin.

"That's Pandora's Box."

* * *

Out of fifty, it was the fifth-largest state in America. And most of those one-hundred twenty-one, six hundred and sixty five square miles was desert. Expansive, red desert. Desert filled with dust and heat, devoid of water, and be it day or night, things that were very, very dangerous.

It was a place where you could hide something and keep it hidden forever.

And some people had thought they might.

Other people thought better of it.

* * *

"It's your Will."

Krycek frowned at the unbecoming disc of silver as he held it up to the high noon light.

"You don't have to think of it _that_ way," Mulder muttered. "I mean. If things go according to plan, it should be backup. That's all."

"Everything. It's all on here," Krycek said, more to himself than his companion. "Every last betrayal and treason."

"The ones that I know about, at least."

"So if not your will, than your memoirs," he smirked and looked at Mulder. "Say anything about me in there?"

"Yeah, it says _something_ alright."

"I don't want to know."

Mulder, with a triumphant grin, turned his attention back to the road. Not that it needed it. He wasn't concerned about accidentally squashing an innocent tumbleweed. They drove quietly for a while.

"So what about you, Alex?" he asked. "What've you got left behind?"

Krycek shook his head. He looked about to respond. He didn't. Mulder waited, but when his answer never came, he looked back to the road.

"You still haven't told me where we're going," Krycek said.

"An old mine shaft. What we're looking for isn't in _that_ particular shaft, but I think they're connected somehow. Backup routes, a method so they don't get lost. People always expect the big metal silo hiding beneath the ground, but the truth is much more real," Mulder said. "Men are still men, after all."

"So we're looking for…more government secrets?"

"Just the next dot on the treasure map."

"You don't know where the big red X is, then."

"The problem is that it seems to be _everywhere_."

Mulder's expression was one of dry amusement.

"I wish that damned letter would stop following me."

Krycek smirked, then cast a glance down to his cell-phone, half slipped from his pocket and turning on at his touch. The little screen flickered awake and read to him:

Seven missed calls.

His brow furrowed.

"Krycek?"

He snapped back to attention.

"What?"

"You're up for this?"

Krycek smirked.

"I got shot in the face and lived. I think I can handle this."

* * *

"Oh no. Oh no. Ohhh nooo."

Jeffrey paced, or rather limped, trying to subdue his worst-case scenario imagination. Seven times. Seven times! And each time his call was directed straight to voice mail.

He must have been captured. Or killed. Or abducted. Or all three. _Plus things that were even worse._

He plunked down into the chair.

Of course he didn't give Marita the cell phone number. He didn't trust her, as nice as she may have seemed. She was weak when he met her, an experiment of _Theirs_, and now suddenly she was back on her toes and ready to help? It didn't make sense. She must have had made some agreement with Them.

Worse, what would happen to him if Krycek was killed? Nobody would know he was there.

He thought he should do something.

He stood up.

He sat back down.

He turned on the television.

What something could he possibly do? All he could think of was to wait.

* * *

"This is it?"

It was a mineshaft alright. A very foreboding looking mineshaft.

"You know as soon as we go in there something will pop out of the walls and like, suck our blood out through our nipples or something, right?"

Mulder adjusted his sunglasses, donning an expression of thought.

"No. Those are a type of fairy, found in Germany. They'd be a long way from home way out here. Come on," the agent said, stepping forward toward the shaft entrance.

Krycek opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and continued after his cohort.

Wind whispered out of the entrance of the cave, like the breathing of something great and slumbering. They went in without a second thought, down the tunnel of crumbling walls and rotting beams. It was a mine that hadn't seen entrance in decades. Not usual entrance, in any case.

"You would think there would be a town nearby. If this was an old mine? It wouldn't be out in the middle of nowhere like this," said Krycek, running his hands against the walls and trying to make sense of them.

Mulder clicked on a flashlight.

"See, that's the beauty of it," he said. "People might see it and think it's just an old mine shaft. Condemned. Something to steer clear of. It's one of those unbecoming things that never get a second glance. And that's why it's perfect," he stopped at a fork in the tunnel. "There's no town around it, Krycek, because it was probably never a real mine shaft to begin with."

They stood, looking down the tunnels.

"You want the right or the left?"

Krycek glared at him.

"Just kidding. It's this way."

"How do you know?"

"Because, this was the tunnel with the most planning and detailing on the blueprints I found."

"Er," said Krycek. "So you don't think it would be, y'know, the one that _has_ no real record?"

"Exactly," Mulder said.

Krycek thought about this.

"Reverse psychology," he said. "The only ones even out here would be curious enough to take the tunnel less travelled."

Mulder nodded in the flashlight's buttery light. They continued on for a while. The way they had to move, it felt like the tunnel was sculpted downward. Deeper into the cold earth.

The further they went, the nicer the walls seemed. What should have been rotting wooden support beams became rust-free metal. What would have been the natural scent of musk and mildew was absent. It felt uncannily civilized.

"Hey, you didn't think to bring an extra gun, did you?" Krycek asked, glancing back uneasily over his shoulder.

"Did you think to bring a giant magnet?" Mulder quipped in response.

"Touché."

"If we run into supersoldiers, a gun will only get us so far," said Mulder. "And no offence, but I want to be the one who holds it."

"You still don't trust me," Krycek said.

"Sorry. Force of habit."

"Well what do you expect me to _do?_"

Mulder didn't answer, because he'd stopped. He turned off the flashlight. With the lamps hanging from the ceiling, it was no longer necessary.

"That's kind of weird," he said.

Cautiously they continued. The dim light from the rickety fixtures was more unsettling than the dark. It made the building itself feel alive. Mulder held his gun, though it was more for comfort than real defence.

The maw of another tunnel poked out to their left. Mulder looked at it.

"So?" Krycek asked. "Do we go down there?"

"I'm going to say no," Mulder replied. "Though I guess we'll find out soon enough."

The tunnel grew cooler as they subtly descended. They rounded a corner, another, and passed another hole in the wall, but it seemed endless.

Then the hair on the back of Krycek's neck stood completely on end.

"Wait."

He turned. He listened.

There were footsteps coming up behind them. They were fast.

"Krycek…"

"Run," Krycek said, pushing Mulder ahead a step. "_Run!_"

It was blind, their path, but it didn't matter so much as they got away. But where to? There could only be more trouble at the end of their path. The hearts of both men clenched.

"How the hell did they find us?" Mulder spat.

"I don--"

Krycek was cut off as a bullet zinged off a metal support beam. Mulder gritted his teeth and pulled out his weapon. The next few light fixtures exploded, raining glass down on them and bathing the tunnel in darkness. A grunt of displeasure from behind them gave them a moment's worth of stalling, time for their minds to recuperate.

Fingers dug into Mulder's arm. Krycek pulled him to the side, and they ducked through a gap in the wall.

Like blood, the condensation ran from the cave ceiling, pooling and clotting in the constricted artery it called a home. Beckoned down its throat, the two men ran, rather facing the gut of the sedimental beast than what lay behind them.

Yet they could still hear it closing in.

The cacophony of their hard breathing and pounding footsteps was joined by a gunshot, shocking the air and smashing a rock wall ahead of them. Now sprinting faster, blinded in the darkness, the men took little time to examine their surroundings and dashed onto what seemed to be a very old catwalk.

By glancing over his shoulder and past the form of Krycek, Mulder was quick to notice the advance of the intruder behind them, dressed in what appeared to be a slick suit and a solemn expression. For an instant he wondered who he once was; he was older, refined. He could have been someone's father. Grandfather, even. A husband. A neighbour. But it didn't matter now; what he was now was a beast with bloodlust.

Mulder's momentary pause in judgement allowed Krycek to overtake him, only on instinct, powerful legs pumping non-stop. He could see the other side of the gap--

"Wait!"

A metallic shriek cut his thoughts short. The catwalk shuddered under his feet, and he knew it would meet its fate before they found sanctuary.

He also know he couldn't hold on.

Like the jolting of a wicked rollercoaster, the catwalk gave way, swinging backwards. Krycek twisted, trying to mesh his fingers into the grate. He screamed as his own weight pulled down on his single arm.

Mulder, who had a better grip on the grate, yelled and reached down for a moment. His fingers dug into Krycek's collar before he, too, was pulled from the crippled catwalk.

They tumbled down into the cavern below, until not just the surroundings went black.

* * *

The man searched the edge, studying the gap. The catwalk dangled weakly, a faint trace of blood over the grate glittering in the dark. He kicked the jutting edge of the catwalk and it swayed, clanging, complaining. He looked over, but couldn't see through the darkness.

But he didn't need to.

Smirking in the most inhuman of manner, he turned on his heel and headed back the way he came.


End file.
